John McCain campaign runs into trouble after using Vietnam PoW footage

John McCain's presidential campaign has run into new problems after it used footage of him as a prisoner of war in Vietnam that has become the subject of a legal row.

John McCain was a prisoner of war until 1973Photo: AP

By Tom Leonard in New York

7:14PM BST 23 Oct 2008

The Republicans have used shots and excerpts from the 1967 interview in their advertising but the widow of the journalist who made the film says it was released without her permission.

Mei Chen Chalais, whose husband, Francois, spoke to a bedridden McCain, is demanding payment from at least seven French and American broadcasters.

Her lawyers say they even sent a letter on the rights issue to Mr McCain's campaign team, although Mme Chalais does not want to sue the former PoW.

The French national audiovisual archive, INA, decided to post the four and a half minute interview on its website for a week, evidently much to the happiness of the hard-pressed McCain presidential campaign.

Some of the images from the black and white interview have been used in McCain advertising and on his campaign website.